Bubbles
by amandajbruce
Summary: Bubble - (verb) to sparkle, foam, effervesce, or froth, to become more intense and approach the point of being vehemently expressed, to be filled with an irrepressible positive feeling. (noun) a thin sphere of liquid enclosing air or another gas, used to refer to a fortunate situation isolated from reality that is unlikely to last.


It's something Leo Fitz realizes just a moment too late during his first term at the Academy. Yes, he isn't even old enough to drink here, but he had a full ride at one of the most prestigious universities in the world, and wound up one of the youngest recruits in SHIELD history. But that isn't what he realizes. What he realizes, just as he pulls on his last cleanly pressed polo, is that he has never in his entire teenage life had to do his own washing. And he isn't entirely sure where to begin.

He decides he'll worry about it after he attends the afternoon lecture session for the extraterrestrial biology class the director is forcing him to take. It's some sort of required curriculum. He's never particularly liked life sciences. Taking things apart and putting them back together is the fun part, not analyzing their metabolic make up. Though he does find it particularly amusing that the girl who sits in the very front row, center seat, seems to know more about the lectures than the junior agent entrusted with giving them to the hall every week, and most of the information included is not even public knowledge. Her posh English tones echo across the rows of two hundred students, all without the aid of a microphone. She somehow manages to catch everyone's attention. He couldn't tell you her name, but her hand is always the first to shoot into the air, the first to have an answer, no matter the question. Her hair is always in a halfhearted ponytail that she toys with while the junior agent gives his talk. It's like she thinks if she can answer everything before she's asked, she'll be able to race her way through the course ahead of everyone else and get on to the next one.

Leo wishes that was how college had worked. He'd have breezed through all these classes he'd never needed with a few late night cram sessions. Unfortunately, they want you to spend the entire semester in just a few courses, soaking it all in, as the dean had put it. Leo wasn't convinced that was the way to go. As time went on, he crammed more and more courses into his timeline, making it to graduate school in just two years, and earning his PHD in almost as little time. He had been thrilled with the invitation to come to a place where he could study what he wanted to study without the pesky general education requirements, or so he had assumed. The Academy isn't so much as a school where you study, but a training facility where you prepare for… well, whatever's out there. SHIELD is supposed to be the frontline against anything out of the ordinary. He still isn't exactly sure what that means.

But he puts those thoughts aside as he leaves his room and begins his trek, instead occupying his mind with the best way to optimize the water output in the shower head of the washroom stall he always uses. For all its accolades, this Academy has rubbish water pressure. He aims to get that fixed. As soon as he can get back from this awful lecture.

His walk across campus is brisk, there's a little nip in the autumn air, but nothing that would require a coat. Not like back home. And he has just a twinge of homesickness for green hills and the smell of scotch that seems to flood all the restaurants, even the ones that claim to not serve the stuff. But the twinge passes when he remembers that all he would be doing at home is sitting bored in the classroom for a subject her really doesn't need, or finding new pieces of junk to blow up on the outskirts of the property.

That last downed tree had almost got him into serious trouble.

Instead of thinking of home, he thinks about how even the air here is different. Not as crisp, as clean. It's drowning in cigarettes and perfume and that cheap stuff the American college kids think is real ale. It would be like walking through a crappy pub on a regular basis if there wasn't a greenery crew out here every few days, trimming the hedges and mowing the lawn. The mixture of the freshly cut grass scent with everything else was overwhelming sometimes.

It's nothing like the smell of rust and mold and paint and ink and some unidentifiable chemicals that hits him when he walks into the lecture hall though. And there's something else there too, something that he'd rather not consider. Because he's fairly certain it would turn his stomach all too quickly.

"What in the bloody hell is that stench?" he wonders aloud, not realizing that most of the students crowded near the door have probably never heard him speak before. None of them likely even knew that he wasn't an American. Pasty skin wasn't enough of a giveaway when you worked in a subject that kept you inside most of the time.

"It seems that a pipe's burst in the girl's washroom at the end of the hall. Class is canceled for repairs."

The voice that pops up from just in front and to the left of him is one with which he is very familiar. And very eager. And very English. It's the girl from the front row, center seat, the girl whose messy ponytail and starched collars he'd know anywhere.

"We are, of course," she says, rolling her eyes in the direction of the hastily scrawled sign left on the door, "encouraged to continue our own pursuit of the knowledge that would have been apparent in this lecture."

"Well," Leo says, eyes meeting hers for the first time in the month they'd been in class together, "that was a waste of a walk." He abruptly turns on his heel and strides from the building. He had never really been that sociable as a kid, and he definitely wasn't used to being around kids his own age. He was expecting everyone to be years older than him here. They had told him as much, worried he'd have trouble adjusting. Little did they know undergraduate studies had been the hardest part of his academic career, and the one that had got him into the most trouble early on. But this English girl, now that he could see her up close, she couldn't be much older than him.

"Yes," she agrees, hot on his heels. "Probably a prank being pulled on us new recruits since this building is for all of the introductory courses."

Startled, Leo glances to his side to find her struggling to keep up with his gait. In the short time that he has been here, no one has ever walked with him before, so he just makes some sort of noncommittal noise of agreement and inclines his head. As she starts chattering on about the ease of their first classes, he finds himself slowing his walk, allowing her to keep pace with him. There's something about her voice that is making him less annoyed. He can feel the knots in his shoulders loosening and the strain behind his eyes lessening. Maybe it's that she just seems so…._happy. _

It bubbles up from somewhere inside of her and exudes from her every pore. He doesn't know where it comes from, or why it seems to surround her so much, but there it is. She is practically bouncing on her toes alongside him, her hands gesturing as she speaks, fingers curling and uncurling in midair. Her eyes dart from one side of the walk to the other, to him, to the sky, but never to the ground. She's genuinely excited and nothing short of effervescent. If being able to see auras was an actual thing, like so many so called psychics would have people believe, she would have something bright and cheery like a sunshine shade of yellow surrounding her.

Leo has grown used to being on his own, huddled over nuts and bolts in the lab fitting them onto equipment, hunched in a study corral in one of the libraries researching a new power source, sitting in the back corner of a lecture hall to be able to leave at the first sign of trouble, or holed up in his room watching episodes of his favorite British shows that they don't have here in the States. He barely made his way through primary and secondary school on his own, bored out of his mind, before he finally decided to apply himself and ace every standardized test and university entrance exam he could qualify for. He was used to being picked on for being a loner, for being the youngest, the smallest. He wasn't used to a fairly pretty girl walking alongside him of her own free will with a wide smile on her face and earnest eyes. A little bit of her happy might have been rubbing off on him, but only just a little bit.

When he reaches the door to the building that houses his dorm room, he pauses, shuffling his feet awkwardly and rubbing the back of his neck with his left hand.

"Uh, this is me? I guess I'll see you…" He trails off, realizing that he doesn't even know her name.

"Simmons. Jemma Simmons, actually." She smiles again, wider than before, and offers her hand for him to shake.

"Fitz." He doesn't offer his first name. Most people give him strange looks at Leopold. And there are a few who make comparisons to Hollywood stars at Leo. It's easier this way. He's spent the last few years getting used to being called by his surname. But she already knows who he is.

"Leopold. Yes, I gathered." Her grasp is firmer than he expects and she gives his hand an extra squeeze before she lets go, not making fun of his name, but adding, "This is actually me too. Did you not know this is the building for all new recruits?"

"Guess I never really thought about it."

She shakes her head in amusement, her ponytail swaying from side to side in front of him as she trots up the steps and swipes an ID to get the electronic lock to deactivate. If it were anyone else, he would think they were making fun of him, but for some reason, her amusement doesn't seem to be at his expense. It's almost like she expects him to laugh as well.

He rushes up behind her, pulling the door open just as the light next to the electronic panel goes from green to red, figuring it's the polite thing to do. She smiles even wider, if that's at all possible, and then picks up their conversation right where it left off before they got to the building.

"Do you think Professor Vaughn makes his lectures so boring to weed out the people who can't take it? I mean, rumor has it there's a near impossible obstacle course at Ops to get the recruits who can't measure up to wash out on their own. I'm sure Communications has something similar too. They'd have to. Do you think Vaughn is our test?"

She's so earnest in her question as they make their way over to the elevators that Leo can't help but chuckle. Vaughn has notoriously boring lectures, and his tests are all based on obscure facts about the history of SHIELD. He's known to pick people at random if he catches them not paying attention as well. He makes them recite rules and regulations from the SHIELD handbook. And if you can't do it word for word, he kicks you out of class for the week. If anyone tells you what you've missed in the lecture that week and he finds out, he'll dock your next exam grade. He's hard, but Leo doesn't know if he qualifies as their wash out test.

"You don't think they'll throw something tougher than Vaughn at us while we're here?" he asks her instead of giving her a straight answer. He's never really been great at small talk, but he likes listening to her voice, and he finds that there's a large part of him that just wants to keep her talking. For once, he isn't looking at his own reflection in the metallic doors in front of him. Instead, he sees the buttons for the floors light up out of the corner of his eye, and he wishes they had taken the stairs. It would only give him another 60 seconds to talk to this girl, but it was 60 seconds more than the required amount of time he had spent with any of his classmates in the last few weeks.

"Well, of course, I've heard rumors from some of the others, but nothing I can take seriously. I mean, do you really think they'd lock us in a room with an unfinished Stark research project for a few hours, and expect us to finish it in order to be granted agent status? The entire idea is preposterous." Simmons laughs out loud and she gives Leo the impression of water falling over rocks to a pond below. It looks beautiful and delicate, but there's an underlying power to it. He starts to think that he could really get along with this girl. She begins to discuss some of the developments that Tony Stark has made for SHIELD, but reveals that she's on the bio-chem track, so she can't imagine she's going to be reworking developmental engineering blueprints to get through the Academy.

Leo tells her he's on the engineering track, and that he would love to take apart a few of Stark's inventions. And that's as far as he gets because the elevator has reached her floor and she says "Oh," her mouth staying in that slightly surprised shape as she stares at the open doors in front of her. She takes a step forward, but rocks back on her heels, spinning around so she's eye to eye with him, the elevator door sensing her movement, partially closing on her arms, then opening again. She fiddles self-consciously with the end of her ponytail.

"Everything okay," Leo asks uncertainly.

"Would you like to review together tonight, for Vaughn's exam this Friday? I usually go it alone, but I've been reading up on this recent study that suggests memorization can be aided by associating memorized terms with specific vocal patterns, and well, your voice –" She cuts herself off, cheeks turning a slight shade of pink. "Not that I only want to study with you because of your speech tones or anything, I just –" Jemma takes a breath and Leo feels the beginning of a smile tug at the corners of his mouth. She gets as flustered as he does around people. Maybe all of that chatter is just a front, the same way his quiet solitude has been. "I think it would be helpful to have another set of eyes on the material. Another voice reciting the material."

His mind races. As sweet as this girl seems, he isn't sure how to get through an entire study session with her. He's never had to do that before. That quiet solitude has served him well the last couple of years. He's been able to steer clear of bullish fraternity brothers and girls who want to make their boyfriends jealous. And there's the shower head this afternoon that he wants to work on. And the laundry he really needs to do. And he could easily think of a dozen more excuses.

"I, ah…"

She mistakes his hesitation for denial and the muscles in her face ever so slightly drop to something less than the smile she was sporting before. She tilts her head to the side, just so, eyes searching his face. "It's alright if you have other plans, or another study partner. I just thought we could help each other."

"It's not that," Leo says, finding himself, for what is the first time in a very long time, unable to say no to someone. "It's just that I had a project, not an Academy one, I was going to work on this afternoon. And I was going to try to get some laundry done-"

"Laundry. Lovely. I've actually been meaning to wash my linens. My dorm mate has this awful incense she's been burning, and it has quite literally seeped into th quilt my gran gave me. I've got to get rid of the smell. She's finally got through all of the incense, so today would be the perfect time. We can study while our things wash." Her face relaxes a little bit at the thought, her spine straightening, and Leo finds himself agreeing on a time to meet in their building's laundry room. He just has to figure out how to do his laundry without looking like a complete imbecile.

-o-

Unfortunately for Leo, he finds himself so preoccupied with thoughts of laundry and reviewing Academy history and English accents that he has a very difficult time working with the shower head. He takes his box of tools into the bathroom, fiddling and tweaking until the entire thing comes apart in his hands, water spewing forth everywhere when he turns the knob thinking he's finally finished. It's an amateur project, something he thought would idly pass the time. It's something he likely could have done when he was twelve with minimal effort. But Jemma Simmons has him losing focus in a way he isn't sure about. Maybe it's the prospect of having someone here who doesn't expect him to tuck his head down and keep walking when he runs into them in the hall. It takes him twice as long to get the water pressure at the level he wants, and by then his hair is dripping, his polo is damp, and the knees of his jeans have wet spots on them that look ridiculous. It probably would have been better if he actually showered while he was in there. He doesn't have time to worry about it though. He tosses his limited notes from Vaughn's lectures into the top of his laundry hamper, grabs his ID card and a box of washing powder that he and his roommate, whom he hasn't even seen since yesterday afternoon, split the cost on, but he has yet to use.

He gets to the laundry facility in the basement of their building and it's empty. There's a sign on the door with a list of rules, and one of them states in a severe looking font **NO UPGRADING THE EQUIPMENT WITHOUT PROPER AUTHORIZATION**. It's only been there a few years. Apparently, they used to have a small room with a couple of washers and dryers on each floor so that the rookie SHIELDers didn't have to go as far to do their washing. But an enterprising engineering student, probably not all that different from Leo himself, attempted to make the old washing machines more energy efficient on the top floor of the building, and his upgrade didn't go as well as planned. Not only did he flood the top floor, but he damaged a ventilation shaft, blew out a window, and put another student in a coma. He was using some sort of energy source he had developed in the lab after study hours.

Nobody ever said innovation didn't come with a price.

Of course, the agents in charge of the Academy didn't quite see the upside, especially when they had to shut the building down for a week for repairs and notify a girl's parents that she was severely injured without even making it into a lab. The student responsible ended up washing out of the Academy. Any and all student projects were now supposed to be supervised by a faculty member, or an agent qualified to oversee independent study.

Leo decides it's probably best not to mention his small repair job on the plumbing to anyone.

He opens the door to one of the front loading washing machines. It looks like something he would find in an industrial chemical lab, like it could make a mean cocktail of who knows what. There are so many buttons and knobs, and none of the symbols on or around them are particularly legible now; it's the first time he's ever really found a machine intimidating before. Inside the door, just where it should seal itself to the machine, are the instructions for use. The only problem is half of them are rubbed away by years of use. There's something about closing the door, or is that opening the door? Whatever it says, there's a picture of the door, and water coming out of it. He raises his eyebrows, gives a shrug, and swipes his ID card across the strip at the front of the machine, which looks to be what to do in lieu of some sort of payment. The machine responds to him by giving an angry beep, and Leo takes a step back in alarm.

"Have you not used the facilities yet?" Jemma's voice floats over to him from the doorway she's struggling to get through with a mound of blankets in her arms.

Leo gives her a sheepish smile and moves to hold the door open for her. The blankets do have a strange scent to them, but it isn't altogether unpleasant; they are sweet and fruity and flowery all at once. He makes a mental note that the quilt from the grandmother has varying shades of yellow patterned fabric mingling with the basic cream color of most of the cloth squares. Her grandmother finds her sunshine-like as well.

"I haven't really had a chance yet. Been pretty busy."

"Right… you must be so busy with all of this novice work we've been getting." She rolls her eyes and shoves the blankets into the machine he was examining, shutting the door with a snap. She slips a pod of soap from her back pocket and drops it into what must have been a hidden compartment on the side of the unit. She spins one dial, then another, and gives the big green button on the front a press. Gears whir to life and the hiss of water can be heard in the pipes. She gives a self-satisfied smile when she turns to him. "We do have more than one class together, you know. I've seen you. You barely take notes. You usually just stare out the window. And we are currently tied for top marks." She pantomimes poking him in the side in a teasing gesture. He supposes she doesn't actually touch him because they don't really know one another, but even with the pantomime, he imagines he can feel the tip of her finger through his layers of clothing.

"Are we really?" Leo wonders aloud. He hasn't been paying all that much attention to his marks. He just absorbs the material, does the required work, and tinkers with his own side projects.

Jemma gives a slight giggle in response and removes her bag from her shoulder. She turns from him to place her belongings on one of the folding tables while Leo hurries to mimic her use of the washing machine with another unit. He shoves every piece of clothing he's worn in the last month inside with complete disregard for what he's doing, even using his shoulder to wedge the last few articles into the drum. He snaps the door shut with a little more effort than she used, spinning the dials at random, and pouring what he thinks should be enough soap into the hidden compartment. He pushes the button and swipes his ID card, and he does this all in a matter of seconds so that he can join Jemma at the table without giving away that he has no idea what he's doing.

"Um, I don't really – "

"Have a lot of notes? I thought as much since I never notice you take very many. But I brought everything I have on this particular period in SHIELD history." Jemma produces a series of manila folders from her bag that could only have been pilfered from the records room the Academy students were encouraged to use to research the programs they were interested in entering.

"These are from the records room, yeah? The files that aren't computerized yet?" He looks at her in surprise, and maybe with a bit of admiration now.

Giving a small shrug, Jemma doesn't meet his eyes. "Vaughn's exams are so detailed, and I didn't think anyone would miss them…" Her voice small, it trails off as she flicks her gaze around the room.

"Your secret's safe with me; don't worry."

She smiles with more than a little relief. "Good. Let's get started, shall we?"

Fifteen minutes later, and the machines are whirring steadily along behind them, every so often emitting little ticks and knocks of buttons and zippers hitting the metal sides of the drum during their spin through the water. Leo is beginning to think of the sound of a washing machine as the soundtrack to the SSR's work with Captain American during World War II, and he understands Jemma's comments about sound influencing study habits. He isn't sure if he's ever going to be able to study again without the rush of water in pipes or the quiet chuckle of Jemma's amusement when he makes fun of old Hydra uniforms. This way of studying – her throwing out seemingly random questions from one file while he peruses another, and then the reverse – is much better than his usual method of sitting at the desk in his room attempting to recall lectures from memory.

"So... Hydra goes after this energy source and weaponizes it, but they still have scientists stationed all over the world attempting to recreate Dr. Erskine's super soldier formula. They were really hell-bent on world domination at any cost, weren't they?" She wonders aloud. It's like she's surprised that an organization that names itself after a mythical beast with regenerating heads is an evil one.

"Yeah," Leo agrees. "That's why they created AIM. They wanted to have science in their back pocket." He pauses and one side of his mouth quirks up in a smile. "It's kind of funny how much they put into getting the best scientists to work for them. They had a handful of brilliant men doing their bidding in labs, but they were really just a bunch of thugs hiding behind their guns when you get right down to it. Most of their scientists ended up defecting over the years."

"Hmmm…" Jemma doesn't respond, just closes one folder and slips it back into her bag. She's just getting ready to move on to another one, turning to hop up on the table and sit, when she gives a yelp of surprise. The washing machines have moved into high gear, and while the duo have been going over possible exam information, rivulets of water have been travelling down Leo's chosen washing machine and onto the floor.

Leo turns his head at her cry and finds a mound of soap suds surrounding the washing machine. The soap and water is rapidly approaching them.

"Please tell me I'm imagining that," he says, mostly to himself, but Jemma starts laughing in response, seated on the table, now high above the soap and water that is very soon going to take over their section of the room.

"Just how much cleanser did you add to your clothes?" She asks between giggles.

He doesn't answer her with words, but he's sure the back of his neck and the tips of his ears are as bright red as his face feels, so he probably doesn't have to. "The bloody machine's probably not calibrated correctly is all," he mutters, not wanting to admit that this is much more likely the result of him having absolutely no idea what he was doing when he stuffed it to the brim with clothing. It's a miracle any water fit in there with his clothes.

He can feel her watching him as he slips and slides his way back over the machine, looking for some sort of off switch. Before he can find one though, the machine containing her quilt and sheets begins to rattle ominously, and the same sudsy foam begins to spew from the seal around the door as well.

"Well," Jemma calls over the noise, likely trying to be comforting, but clearly fighting off another fit of giggles, "guess it's not the soap then."

Leo, up to his thighs in a wall of bubbles, turns to face her. "You think?" As he watches, she removes her shoes and rolls up the legs of her jeans before hopping down to join him.

"That it's another plumbing related prank? Definitely."

He chooses not to correct her assumption of his line of thinking. She's all business now, and he's just happy she's at his side, examining the machines as well. Bending at the waist to look inside one of the glass doors, a furrow forms between her eyebrows. She jumps a little when a gurgling sound indicates another rush of water from behind the pane. A handful of bubbles burst through, one catching on her shirt sleeve, settling there for just a moment, throwing bits of yellow and pink across her arm where it catches the light. She reminds Leo a little bit of a fairy tale princess as she looks at it, like Snow White holding a bird in the palm of her hand or something. She smiles at him for a moment when she straightens up, and it's soft and shy, not like her earlier laughter, but then the bubble pops, and the moment is gone.

"Since we have no idea what they've done, I don't think there's anything for it. We'll have to pull the plugs and hope the water all drains out through the floor." She shrugs her shoulders and gestures behind him, where there is a slight dip in the flooring, and where a grate presumably leads to the pipes below. The water is steadily making its way there, but the bubbles just seem to be building higher and higher around them. She mutters something else under her breath, but he doesn't quite catch what she says.

"Considering I have never repaired a washing machine before, you're probably right," he agrees, lifting his hands to keep them above the growing pile of soap. He shifts his weight from foot to foot though as another idea occurs to him. "Do you think they've all been rigged?" He scoops up a handful of bubbles with one hand, blowing them in the direction of the table where they had been sitting.

Jemma gives him a wide grin, one of someone who enjoys a good prank and isn't about to let one go to waste. "I suppose there's only one way to know for sure, right?"

In a matter of seconds the two are running along the edges of the room, tracking soap suds everywhere they go, slipping and sliding into the machines, tossing a little washing powder inside, and swiping their ID cards. The sound of the water traveling through the pipes and filling all of the empty machines at once is near deafening in the basement facilities. The rushing and pinging echoes off the walls, and it's kind of like a strange new kind of music. Leo bobs his head in time with the pinging rhythm without realizing, and when he meets Jemma's eyes, she still has that wide grin on her face.

"It's kind of a shame, isn't it?" She says slowly.

"What?" Her grin is infectious, and it doesn't occur to him that he should probably start being a little anxious.

"That we're the only ones who get to enjoy this," she answers him, still slowly, like she's afraid of scaring him off. She's treating him like some sort of animal that might be spooked in a large crowd now, taking one small step toward him, pausing to peer at him with encouraging eyes, and then taking another step toward him.

He doesn't tell her that he isn't scared of being around other people, or that he doesn't want to share the site of the bubbles slowly filling the room with anyone else. The truth is, it is kind of a shame that no one else is experiencing this. It might have been meant as a prank to alarm the freshman, but who isn't going to enjoy a room full of the ridiculous sight of soap bubbles? It's enough to bring out the carefree child in anyone. Instead, Leo keeps the grin on his face, "yeah, we should probably tell someone."

Jemma starts off by calling her roommate, who calls her boyfriend, who calls his roommate and his lab partner, and it just spirals from there. Soon the laundry room is not just full to the brim with bubbles and the soundtrack of running water, but with first year SHIELD recruits and alcohol made in dorm room stills, and Leo finds himself standing with Jemma, actually talking to other cadets, relaxed for what feels like the first time since he's been there.

After a particularly rousing discussion of dark matter with some people in one of his physics classes, he taps her gently on the shoulder to get her attention. There's an idea that he's been turning over and over in his mind as the room has been filling. Jemma excuses herself from the group and turns to him expectantly.

"This wasn't your prank, was it?" He leans in so that no one else can hear him, his lips almost right up against her ear. The freshman pranksters never come forward. It's part of the tradition. It's always better if it's just rumors swirling around. He's gratified when he sees her cheeks pink, and knows it's likely not a result of the party going on all around them.

"I don't know what you're talking about. I'm a bio-chem student. I'm not very good with mechanics," she tells him just as quietly, shaking her head for good measure. But her fluttering hands and wide eyes give her away. This might not have been her prank, but she definitely knows something. Leo Fitz finds right away that Jemma Simmons is not a very good liar.

"Well, I was just thinking, if you're that good at working with the plumbing, there might be a prank you can help me with, you know, if you're interested." He shrugs nonchalantly, acting as though it's no big deal. But if Jemma's got the measure of him already, and he suspects she does since she was the one to approach him for this _study session _to get him out of his room, he knows that she knows it's a big deal for him to ask for help.

She breathes a measured sigh of relief and relaxes into his side. "Okay… I might know something about this prank…" She trails off and nods in the direction of her roommate and the other girl's boyfriend. "I may have overheard a conversation or two and I may have thought it was a really cool idea. I didn't know for sure that they had got to the machines until we tried doing the washing though..." She leans in further and he can smell her shampoo over all of the lemon scented soap in the room. It's something light and flowery. Lilac maybe, or lavender? He isn't sure. He's never been all that great with flowers. "You know, I thought there was a chance we could be a good team, and I'm sure together we could figure something out," Jemma tells him conspiratorially. "What did you have in mind?"

He doesn't get the chance to answer her because the room goes abruptly silent. The clicking of high heels behind the two of them tells Leo that someone who is likely not a student, and maybe not amused by the events in the laundry room, has just come through the door.

"I trust that whomever is responsible for this mess will clean it up immediately." Agent Weaver, newly appointed head of the Science and Technology Academy surveys the room with a critical eye. She's the agent responsible for recruiting Leo, and he gets the feeling that she's not one who appreciates the art of a well-executed prank. The look on her face can only be described as severe. "Everyone else needs to return to their rooms. Now. I trust you all have experiments and exams for which you could prepare."

Jemma and her roommate share a look of complete and utter terror, and Leo watches in disbelief as everyone in the room files through the door with their heads down, including said roommate's boyfriend, who he suspects might have been the actual mastermind behind the plan. When the last person has left, hiding a suspicious bottle of clear liquid on their left side so that Weaver doesn't see it, only he, Jemma, and Jemma's roommate Katherine are left in the basement.

Leo risks a look at Jemma, and he can see it in her eyes. She parts her lips, takes a breath, her eyes wide, and prepares to tell Agent Weaver that she's sorry, that it's her fault, that she should be held responsible. Jemma, despite her borrowing files from the records room, and encouraging the party to accompany the prank, is a very good girl. She's not particularly good at breaking the rules. He can feel it in his bones. She's the kind of person who will always own up to her actions, whether the result is actually her fault or not. Leo doesn't know what comes over him in that moment. Katherine looks like she's about to cry, whether because they got caught or because her boyfriend turns out to be scum, he isn't sure. And Jemma might pass out from the shared guilt. He's made a promise to his mother that studying in America means he will stay out of trouble and do absolutely nothing that could get him sent back to Scotland on the first flight available. He's breaking that promise.

"I'm sorry, Agent Weaver. I wasn't thinking. I got caught up in the prank war between the classes." Fitz keeps his voice carefully flat, his chin tucked down, trying to appear contrite.

He's not the best liar, but he's miles ahead of Jemma. He's known her a day, and it's crystal clear that he would be better at espionage than her. He feels rather than sees Jemma prepare to refute his claims; there's a tension in the air next to him, a so slight anyone else might miss it move toward him, and an intake of breath that he knows is her getting ready to speak again. But he just moves his arm slightly into her side to signal that she shouldn't say anything at all, slides his leg against hers as if to shield her from the view of the superior officer in front of them, and cuts his eyes in Katherine's direction to ensure that she gets the same message. There's no reason that all three of them should get in trouble. Especially since Agent Weaver, the person who's seen his entire file, knows everything about his childhood, knows that he's no stranger to walking into trouble, or finding his way out of it. He swallows and meets Agent Weaver's gaze, still trying to maintain a truly sorrowful expression.

There's a slight flicker at the corner of Weaver's eyes, almost like the formation of a suppressed laugh line. She cocks her head to side, and for a moment, she doesn't look like a highly capable government agent scrutinizing her recruits; she looks like a baby-sitter amused that her chargers have made a swimming pool in the bathroom.

"Is that true, ladies? He didn't have any help with this?"

Leo doesn't let them answer. He responds for them all when he announces, "they're both on the bio-chem track, Agent Weaver. They don't really know how to work the mechanics of a machine like this."

She can't stop the smirk then. Weaver knows very well that the two women in front of her are very bit as capable as the man. She nods her head. A quick one, two, in order to indicate that she understands. "I'll keep this off the books as long as you can get everything sorted back to the way it was." Her eyes flick from one of the kids to the other as she adds, "Fitz, you're on clean up duty in the freshman labs this week, and next. I won't object if anyone wants to help you though." Weaver nods again, and turns on her heels, click, clacking her way through the foam and out of the room.

"You didn't have to do that," Jemma whispers, not sure if Weaver is out of earshot yet.

Leo just shrugs. His eyes are still on the door. He's not entirely sure how he's supposed to get all of the bubbles out of the room. Lucky for him, Katherine has an answer. It's not just the soap that created all those bubbles. It's a chemical compound of her own making that her boyfriend was able to work into the mechanics of the machine drums. She knows exactly how to fix everything, and once she gives the other two a quick run-down of the installation process, the three of them are able to get the machines back to normal relatively quickly, and throw Jemma and Leo's laundry into the dryer. Jemma finds that the forgotten manila folders she borrowed from the records room are miraculously undamaged from the impromptu party.

"Thank you," Katherine tells him an hour later. "This was really cool of you. And I'll do most of the lab clean up. I'm sorry you got stuck with it." She's got a mop that she's using in some sort of strange attempt to swish and smother foam from one wall of the room to the floor.

"Me too," Jemma chimes in. She has a bucket of water in her hands and is pouring it into a corner of the room to usher the foam closer to the drain in the middle of the floor.

"You do realize that if we're on clean up duty, we're the only first year students at the Academy with total access to the labs without faculty supervision," Leo remarks with a proud smile at the girls.

"You're a bit of an evil genius, aren't you?" Katherine wonders while Jemma laughs. Leo just shrugs again, but the truth is the thought hadn't even occurred to him until just then. It's just an added bonus to the events of the day.

When they finally finish getting the basement back into working (and extremely clean) order and he and Jemma have their laundry finished, Leo's only complaint about how his day has turned out is that he's missing the brand new bright yellow sweater his mother had given him just before he left home. It's comfortable and he's only had the chance to wear it once. Despite that, he can't do anything but chalk this day up as a win.

-o-

When their next extraterrestrial biology lecture is scheduled, Leo actually gets to the hall a few minutes early. He ambles down the steps and to the front of the rows upon rows of seats. He doesn't want to seem overeager, especially with half of the recruits in the room eying him curiously, their whispers following him. He isn't sure if the whispers are a result of him not usually being at the front, or if everyone knows about the events in the laundry room just days earlier. It doesn't really matter. It's been happening a lot the last couple of days. He has a feeling it's the result of Katherine being grateful and spreading the word that he isn't a creepy loner, but a nice guy after all.

Jemma isn't in her usual seat though. In fact, as he glances around surreptitiously, she isn't anywhere. He stops at the third row from the front instead of the first, and walks through a few empty chairs before he decides to take a seat himself. He hopes he isn't making a mistake. That she still wants to talk to him. He hasn't actually seen her since the laundry room. With no labs scheduled since the foam incident, they haven't even had the chance to get into the laboratories on their own. Their class schedules the last few days haven't coincided either, and he wants to make sure the whole thing with them getting along so well isn't a fluke.

Just as the projector is synced to the laptop near the stage, someone breathlessly plops down next to him. Leo feels one corner of his mouth quirk up in a grin all on its own. He turns to see her, slightly disheveled, the ponytail even more askew than normal, setting her bag down on the desk. The oxford shirt she is wearing was once a crisp white, but is now a muted and uneven sort of yellow, and he knows where his missing sweater has got to.

"Glad I didn't miss it. Had only just finished the rest of my laundry. Can you believe someone left their brand new sweater in the machine? Didn't see it. And now I have a fantastically yellow wardrobe. I think I'm going to keep the sweater too. I don't think the person who left it will miss it, do you," she teases him.

Leo shakes his head and grins. He thinks he mumbles something about yellow being a good color for her. When her laughter bubbles to the surface, they are met with several stares from the people around them, and a few more whispers, but again, Leo finds that he doesn't really care what anyone is saying about him. He feels lighter than he has in weeks, like he's floating.

-o-

* * *

**A/N: I don't even really know how this story happened. It started off as an idea that Fitz had never done his own laundry before. And because I am fascinated by the idea of the Academy, that became the setting. It was supposed to be this simple, short story, maybe a little funny and silly, about he and Simmons becoming friends over something as simple as shared time in a laundry room. And it spiraled out of control into a story about just what kind of friend Fitz could become. I've been through it several times, and every time I go back, I end up adding another paragraph here and there, so I've decided I have to stop before it becomes some sort of strange epic. Hope you all enjoyed it.**


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